X-Surf II, what a scam...

[patrik]

@Cass:

I use a 10BaseT transceiver connected to the AUI-port of the A2065 to get a RJ45 connector. There are lots of different transceivers, I happen to use this one as I got it with the A2065 card.

It would indeed be possible to build a ZorroIII 10/100Mbps ethernet NIC. The bandwidth of the ZorroIII bus would be adequate if the NIC was constructed well as the ZorroIII bus can do over 15MByte/Sec with a CV64 and an appropriate CPU-card (such as for example the Commodore original 030 card or the CSPPC). To fully utilize a full duplex 100mbit connection, a bandwidth of approximately 25MByte/sec would be required, but this bandwidth would seldom be needed during normal operation.

Anyhow, the ZorroIII bus would not be the limiting factor of speed if such a card would be produced. Given that the card was constructed in a really good way with support for scatter/gather dma transfers, delayed interrupts, hardware checksum offload and maybe even more features to reduce system load, there would still exist some big performance hinders.

These are a combination of the SanaII-standard, the current TCP/IP stacks and the socket api (the socket api is almost impossible to keep given the current AmigaOS functionality if one wants to remove the negative impact it has on performance). As it is right now, these hinders put too much stress is put on the memory-system and cpu... and the fact that almost none of the existing cards support any of the hardware features I listed above (the one on the DKB-wildfire supports DMA transfers if I am not mistaken) makes the situation even worse... ever wondered why Amigas even when equipped with a 68060 currently has problems fully utilizing even a 10Mbit link?

If anyone is interested in this subject, a good article can be found  here.


/Patrik

[Cass]

ever wondered why Amigas even when equipped with a 68060 curently has problems fully utilizing even a 10Mbit link?

Sure Patrik, as I mentioned our previous discussion/thread... Thanks for the insightful explanation :-).

@Kronos
You got a point, but I asked if it was technically feasible.
________
Brunette movies

[patrik]

@All:

I guess most of you already know this, but to get the most speed out of your network-cards, use AmiTCP/Genesis as it is the most efficient TCP/IP stack available... if Olaf Barthel by any chance would be reading this: I would gladly buy a copy of your Roadshow TCP/IP stack right now .

Have fun!


/Patrik

[StormLord]

Do you now if Genesis tcp stack support VPN connections ? because I use miami deluxe and one of my connection (critical)  is a VPN connection..
I have used genesis before and I can confirm that genesis with cnet.device is more than 2x faster than miami deluxe with cnet.device.
If genesis support vpn then is a matter of time to switch again to genesis.

[patrik]

@StormLord:

As far as I know, it doesnt support VPN. If you want to use AmiTCP/Genesis with a VPN connection, my advice would be to get a old pentium, run Linux on it and use it as a VPN router. This solution should be much faster as the Amiga will get a faster TCP/IP stack plus it is relieved from the VPN job which then is done by the Linux box instead.


/Patrik

[otpsoft]

Acill wrote:
I just got an X-surf II for free out of a trashed A2000 I found at a yard sale here. It works and thats a great deal for me. The thing that pissed me off though is what the X-surf II card IS. This thing is nothing more then a $5 Realtek based 8029 chip ISA card stuck on a custom ZII adapter board. I looked and see these sell for $120 at most places. Thats a damn shame. I see no reason they should be any more then $50-75 MAX. This s yet another hardware company taking a cheap card and adapting to use on an Amiga then marking it up for max profits. This is going to kill the Amiga all over if new stuff comes out and they mark it up just because it works on Amiga.

Hi,

I discussed this thread with Jens yesterday and he tells me he tried to post a reply but wasn't allowed.

Here is a snippet from him:

"QUOTE"

Read the thread, tried to post a reply, and got the message "you don't have the right to post in this thread". Not sure why, but I'm pretty pissed, because it was a long post explaining all the deatils involved, for example
the custom metal bracket that's even more expensive than the ISA card itself, and software updates costing more than $10,000.00,- until today, but being free for every X-Surf and X-Surf 2 customers.

"END QUOTE"

and that's just for the X-Surf, Jens makes excellent products all round and all take massive development.
Who pays for it?
The end user to a point and Jens to another point I know for a fact that he has written off thousands of dollars in development costs on more than one occasion.

Regs
Otpsoft

[ShadesOfGrey]

If he wrote a very long response his session probably timed out.  Happens to me every once in a while.  There are a couple ways to cope with this though.  You can copy your message to the clipboard before submitting a post, so you can paste it back in after loggin back in.  Or better yet, compose the message 'offline' in a text editor.

[NightShade737]

Sorry, what? Software updates costing $10,000? Where? What are we talking about?

[NightShade737]

"get an Xsurf or a picture of an xsurf get a list of all components on the board.
price how much it would cost you to buy 100 pieces of each part. Get the quotes and post them here"

Yes but remember, the Surf itself is an old ISA card which means he isn't manufacturing them at all, only the adapter, which would have barely any parts at all (that is if I am reading the other posts correctly).

[platon42]

Did you ever think about how much time and effort is necessary to develop drivers and such? E.g. for the X-Surf, you not only get a SANA-II driver, there is also an MNI driver and a dedicated PPPoE device, specifically written for the X-Surf to let users with Genesis, AmiTCP and Miami use the various DSL providers (the only other stack with PPPoE is MiamiDx, which is out of sale). Also, you get drivers for the IDE ports. There have been several updates over the years and they all have been free.

Providing a network solution is not about soldering parts together. Developing the necessary software for such a small market is not cheap at all (and in fact, I wonder if it ever has a return of investment). Calling the X-Surf a scam is really disgusting and I would understand Jens being pissed off.

[Pyromania]

Maybe Don Lapre should get into the Amiga market.

http://www.information-entertainment.com/Business/facts.html

 :lol:

All jokes aside though, Jens busts his ass making some nice Amiga hardware, he works hard and does the best he can given the way the Amiga market is.

[carls]

I own an X-Surf II and I'm very happy with it. First off, all Amiga cards today are very expensive. I had already forked out a heap of money on my A1200T when I got my ADSL. I had a graphics card, a big tower case, a Z-IV busboard etc. Now, I had three choices:

1) Get a PCI busboard, buy a Voodoo card, get a PCI NIC.
2) Try to find a PCMCIA card that works with the CNet drivers and get someone to solder a gayle reset fix, then angle the PCMCIA port so I can fit a card inside the tower.
3) Buy an X-Surf II

Option 1 was too expensive and option 2 was to difficult and risky so I opted for the X-Surf II. Sure, it set me back about $100 and I was suprised to see it was a two-piece card even though I don't really mind as long as it works. And it works perfectly fine.

Besided I've never had to buy drivers for the two IDE ports, they came along on the included driver CD and works swell. I've had both CD-ROMs and hard drives hooked up to them and there's never been any problem.

Now, as an Amiga consumer you have to be a little cautious since it's a small market and to be on the safe side you always have to check things up. If you look at the Big Book Of Amiga Hardware (http://hard-ware.de/amiga) you can clearly see that the X-Surf is a two-peice card.

With that in mind, you have to consider the options: Mediator + Voodoo + PCI NIC, PCMCIA NIC (if you have an A1200), The X-Surf or a second hand Zorro NIC or no NIC at all.

It doesn't leave much choice, does it? If you think it's so expensive, don't buy it.

[Ilwrath]

@carls -

With that in mind, you have to consider the options: Mediator + Voodoo + PCI NIC, PCMCIA NIC (if you have an A1200), The X-Surf or a second hand Zorro NIC or no NIC at all.

It doesn't leave much choice, does it?

No, that it sure doesn't.... And that was the boat I was in back when I bought the XSurf 1 I've been complaining about.  (Although with an A4000, I didn't have the option of PCMCIA NIC, or else I would have jumped at it!)  

Anyhow, I probably shouldn't have aired my own beefs with the XSurf in this thread.  I really didn't think it was a SCAM.  I was just very frustrated with the poor quality.  After forking over about $140USD for a NIC that was marketted as "premium" I honestly felt ripped off to find an $1 ISA NIC grafted in there.  I do believe that the backplane metal cost more than the NIC.  I wish I could have had the option to delete the metal, and use a better NIC, though!!!  It was the insanely thick metal backplane that caused the card not to fit in my A4000.

Anyhow, I would have gotten over the price, the $1 ISA NIC, and the out-of-spec size, had the thing worked.  But it consistantly ran slow (which I blamed on the A4000) and within a little over a year of fairly light use, it fried itself.  

That was basically the time I shelved my A4000 and went with a PC as my primary machine.  Heck, I built the whole PC for about the same amount as a new XSurf would have cost!  And four years later, the junk-ass PC is still running.  (24x7 as my gateway/firewall, now... But it still hasn't fried.)

It was later in nostalgia that I won the 2065 auction, and discovered that it performed much better than my XSurf ever did that really rubbed salt in the wound.

If you think it's so expensive, don't buy it.

I think that is what I'm trying to convey.  Don't repeat my mistake.

[platon42]

> The X-Surf or a second hand Zorro NIC or no NIC at all.

I just wanted to remind that there's the nice little Norway 10MBit/TP extension that fits on a Highway or an Algor USB board and has a rather good price/value ratio (and no, it doesn't use a cheap RealTek NIC). Moreover, the Highway/Algor/Norway combo still only uses one zorro slot, not covering the ISA or Video slot. With the Algor, you even get the flashrom for free ;-)

[Doobrey]

Sshhh Chris,
 We don`t want another thread full of rants by Tjaoz. :pissed: